Marvel Super Special #22: Blade Runner

Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner is the comic book adaptation of the film Blade Runner, published by Marvel Comics in 1982. It was written by Archie Goodwin with art by Al Williamson, Carlos Garzon with Dan Green and Ralph Reese. The Jim Steranko cover leads into a 45-page adaptation which includes one possible explanation of the title's significance in story context: the narrative line, "Blade runner. You're always movin' on the edge." This was issue 22 of the Marvel Comics Super Special series of titles, published by Marvel Comics from 1977 to 1985, which by this time only printed Marvel's movie adaptations. It was reprinted in a two issue mini series but without the feature content contained in this special, which, with the added feature content, brings to 65 (plus covers) the total number of pages. I have been searching for this relatively rare (i.e., for digital scans) issue and I hope you enjoy it. Blade Runner in my mind is one of the three best and one of the most influential Science Fiction films ever made. I am referring to all the extant versions or "cuts" of director Ridley Scott, who established a reputation for himself as a visual stylist with this film. Based on the excellent book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", by Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott created Blade Runner as a stunning view of the dark near-future. Although seen as disturbingly bleak when it was first released, as time has moved on, it can now be seen as increasingly prophetic of the way the world is changing. It is visually stunning, with a granular, garish cityscape that has been much copied, but never bettered, even after more than a quarter of a century. It has been classified as one of the most influential films of the 20th century by both the British Film Institute and the American Film Institute. Blade Runner has not just influenced innumerable science fiction films made since, but has crept into real life in so many ways, ultimately asking those most fundamental philosophical questions, "What does it mean to be human?" and "Who am I?" The Marvel Blade Runner comic book has some very interesting elements in its adaptation and interpretation of the film. Definitely dialogue has to be changed or even trimmed, and certain scenes and details have to be curtailed or adjusted in the transfer from a 2+ hour movie to a comic book one-shot. Some of these differences from the film version references the shooting script; with these and the perspective the comic book has taken, it almost seems as if it were a diferent cut of the film itself.